Advanced Mezzanine Cards

Advanced Mezzanine Cards (AMCs) are part of the MTCA.4 standard.Within the mTCA crate, AMCs are placed in the front of the crate. There are six standard sizes of AMCs: single and double width as well as compact, mid-size and full-size height. Every combination of width and height is valid. the power consumption of an AMC is divided into 3.3V management power plus 12V payload power.Main feature is also the hot-swap-panel which allows to exchange the board while the system is running.

AMC boards are merely used for digital processing. On every AMC board there is a controlling unit called MMC (Module Management Controller).
Plugging in the AMC board to the MTCA crate connects the board to the backplane of the crate. The backplane ensures the connection of the AMC boards with every other AMC board in the crate. Plus, every AMC board is connected to the MCH (MicroTCA Carrier Hub), which is the overall management card of the MTCA system. The MCH gives management power to the AMCs first. This power is used to check if everything is ok with the AMC. If the MMC, the managing unit on the AMC detects no problems on the board, the MCH gives payload power to the AMC.